the three stages of radiant disaster
by hellishtrollop
Summary: The seat beneath her is uncomfortable, and the cool steel of the cuffs on her wrists more-so, but she does not pay attention to any of that. Instead, she pays attention to the way Emma's blonde hair glints in the dingy light of the room.


**i.**

Helga is so cold under her touch, Ingrid thinks distantly as a keening wail escapes her mouth. (_no please i didn't mean it i didn't mean for this to happen please no come back please i'm sorry_) She has never truly realized how cold her powers can be. The constant chill was to her what regular warmth was to people who did not experience terrifying ice in your bones and in your blood and in the pit of your chest, manifesting into a horrifying (_beautiful_) display of complete disaster. Gerda and Helga (_her poor, beautiful sister, so warm and full of life and happiness and kindness, gone forever because of her, her, her_) had always understood. They had always understood her, had always understood her abilities; instead of recoiling away from it, they would lean in as fascinated children and smiling, supportive adults.

They would watch her powers flourish in spirals of frost beneath her very fingertips, and not once (_this was their once_) had they cringed from it. They had decorated their wrists with pretty yellow ribbons, the color of innocence and lost childhood, and they had made a pact of sisters. They had made a _promise_. To never betray eachother, to never harm eachother in any way; arguing was only the furthest that they had ever gone to _harm_, and they were always apologizing the next morning. And those arguments were petty, even — not ever about Ingrid's powers and how it separated them, made her different from both of them.

That is the thing: they'd always acted like she _wasn't_ different, and that had been nicer than anything she could think of.

And now, she is staring down at ice. Helga gasps and freezes and shatters and breaks in Ingrid's arms, and no matter how she wishes to reverse it, to turn back time if it were possible (_but it isn't and what is done is done and nothing will ever be the same again_); and she listens to Gerda's horrified gasping and she _had only wanted to get rid of the Duke how had this happened_—

She stumbles to a stand, red-faced, cheeks wet with tears. Please forgive me, she wants to say. Please don't leave me. I'll do anything, Gerda. Please. Please, please, please, _please_.

"What did you do? What did you do?" Gerda is saying, repeating it over and over again like something will happen, and Ingrid _wishes_. The ribbons are gone from their wrists, traded to an imp for a pair of gloves and an urn that don't matter now, not anymore, because Helga is dead and, really, has anything ever really mattered at all? Because it certainly doesn't feel like it does, not now, not here, not ever again. They are three scattered broken pieces of a whole.

"Please, please don't be afraid—"

She can see, even as she speaks, even as she begs, even as she pleads, even as she's so willing to crawl on her hands and knees and weep before the one sister she hasn't harmed, Gerda change before her. She has the same look in her eyes, on her face, as the Duke had. Horror. Terror. And this is a terrible feeling, Ingrid decides. This is a horrible, terrible feeling, not one she would wish on any single living being ever; but she _deserves_ it. She deserves it so very much. She deserves this misery.

But Helga didn't.

And Gerda doesn't.

She can hear (see taste feel) the words form on Gerda's lips before she actually says them. _You're a monster you're a monster you're a monster_, and the words echo in her head like bells that clang together violently. She is sobbing, stumbling over the drifting lace and silk and whiteness of her gown, and she feels wretched. She _feels_ like a monster. She cannot breathe, Ingrid decides. She cannot think anything but _no, please, no_, Ingrid decides. Gerda lied, Ingrid decides, as the walls and edges of the urn close in all around her and it is so dark and alone and truly, ultimately, _cold_, for the first time. She promised that she would never think of me as a monster and she lied, Ingrid decides.

Ingrid decides: _I killed the only sister who truly understood._

(**take my hand please take my hand**)

* * *

><p><strong>ii.<strong>

She sees Emma, for the first time in person and not from pictures or newspaper clippings or from afar where the girl is seated in the tight, uncomfortable walls of multiple foster homes with people who will never truly love or understand her (and Emma knows that as well as Ingrid does) and she smiles warmly down at the girl and is not entirely surprised when all Emma does is stare sullenly up at her in reply, arms crossed tightly across her chest. Ingrid knows the girl must feel so bitter, so alone. What child who's been passed from foster home to foster home (and, apparently, attempts to escape multiple times) wouldn't? She has been taken and given up again and again, and that must be painful.

Knowing that you are not wanted.

Ingrid _knows_ it is.

She puts Emma in the biggest room in the house; she gives her books to read, a comfortable bed with a canopy. She allows the girl to stay up an hour later than any of the other children. She even lets her eat dinner alone in her room sometimes; but only if she's feeling particularly generous (three out of five times, she is); once, one of the other children sneers something to Emma about being a favorite, and Ingrid grounds him for two weeks. Emma is the happiest for those two weeks.

But Emma does not trust; that part of her, at least, seems to have been broken.

Ingrid does not care.

She will have her perfect family; even if it takes some trying.

(**what a lovely child you were i am so grateful i got to know you then**)

* * *

><p><strong>iii.<strong>

Elsa is beautiful; a vision of steely-eyed grace and royalty, even as she breaks the poorly-built visage of serenity and is led out of the quaint little interrogation room they lock Ingrid in. Truly, do none of them understand that she _wants_ to be here, that she can so easily break from these shackles now if she wished it? Clearly, they did not. Not even Emma; and Ingrid has had such high hopes for her, too. She still does. The girl, perhaps, is not as intelligent as she originally thought of her, but that does not matter. She has Emma again; she has Emma back in her sights, a radiant vision of blonde hair and sharp-and-blunt-and-jagged edges. They would be together again, she thinks fondly as she looks up at Emma, who towers somewhat aggressively over Ingrid herself.

The seat beneath her is uncomfortable, and the cool steel of the cuffs on her wrists moreso, but she does not pay attention to any of that.

Instead, she pays attention to the way Emma's blonde hair glints in the dingy light of the room, the way her heavy footfalls pace back and forth across carpeted floor as Ingrid tempts her further and further towards the point of absolute ruin. She is close now, she can feel it; the tensing of Emma's jaw, the taut set of her mouth. She knows all of the signs from when Emma had been but a child under her care. Of course, that had been then, and this was now; she had never truly _meant_ to upset Emma before, but the girl (woman, now) was just as easily riled as ever.

It soothes Ingrid. It makes her smile, even. Everything is exactly the same. _Emma_ is exactly the same, and that is more comforting than anything else she can possibly think of in that moment.

She recalls days where she would find the girl sulking in her room, and she would coax her out with promises of hot chocolate (with cinnamon, naturally) and extra marshmallows and whipped cream if she liked; then, they would watch Star Wars, but Ingrid would never be able to focus on the movie, but rather on the way Emma did, instead. She'd been such a lovely child. Now she is a lovely woman. Many things had changed, but many things had also remained the same.

It is ever so comforting.

The other children had insistently teased Emma, stolen her belongings and hidden them around the house to the point where Emma would be screaming at them come morning. It was always Ingrid who returns those things to her; the camera, for example (_give that back, Kevin_: the boy had been such an unruly child, selfish and cruel and taunting; but the boy had also not been special, like Emma had been and was and would be, and that had made all the difference) and multiple other things that would be found hanging on high tree branches or stuffed in the back of closets.

Yes, Emma had been a most darling child.

Ingrid watches her now, and a part of her wants to smile. She can practically _see_ the young woman's anger boiling just underneath the surface. It will burst, soon, she thinks, and she would be free, and Emma would _understand_. "You were their only child, and they used you to break a curse. They're still using your powers."

Charming and Snow White do not _deserve_ Emma; not Emma as a person, not Emma as a source of magic, even. Ingrid was the one to care for her, to listen to Emma's tales of how her parents (_whoever they were_, she'd spat angrily back then) had so easily abandoned her without a second thought. It is not so easy to rid one of such wrathful beliefs; especially when nudged along by someone who thought the exact same.

"That's not true."

_Denial_, lists Ingrid mentally. What were the five stages of grief, again? First came denial, and then came anger, and...really, those two steps were all that she needed.

"Isn't it? How many times have you saved them, how often have you felt more like a savior than their daughter? And all it takes is one tiny mistake, _one_ accident and you and your powers go from being their salvation to their worst nightmare."

She distances herself from the truth of those words, focusing on Emma instead of her own thoughts, instead of her own past experiences. Yes, she knows very well what Emma feels like. _Would_ feel like. They are two people cut from the exact same mold, after all.

"You don't know them, _or_ me."

"I don't have to know you, Emma. I've been you. Different. Misunderstood. Alone. And now? They've chosen to have a new child. And don't you think that they thank their lucky stars every day that he was born _normal_."

"They love me." Emma's voice is quivering, now, on the breaking point. Ingrid can feel it, even if Emma is perhaps ignorant of her own oncoming outburst. The water is bubbling in its glass; _boiling_, and Ingrid nearly smiles. _There we go,_ she thinks softly, sympathetically, but no less determined.

"You can't love somebody you don't understand. And do you know what happens when people don't understand something? They learn to fear it. And then they look at it like a monster."

"Shut up!" The ear-ringing sound that comes with the wall blasting outwards finally _does_ make Ingrid give in to the urge to widen her mouth into a smile. Such _strong_ magic. Yes, they are so alike, and surely Emma would come to understand that perfectly well. Soon. Ingrid has always been a very patient person; she has all the time in the world, if she desires it. And soon, _she_ will become _they_ and she will not be so alone anymore. That, truly, is what she desires.

"What did you do to me?" Emma's voice is full of panic and shock, and the sympathy deepens to a tight, burning feeling in Ingrid's chest.

"All I did was show you who you really are."

"Make it stop."

Her smile might be, perhaps, frightening to Emma, wide and full of teeth, elation bubbling to life in the pit of her chest. "I can't," she replies gently, eyes glittering with unspoken glee. "It's you, Emma. And...it's beautiful."

It _is._

(**what family doesn't have their ups and downs?**)


End file.
